


The Two Brothers

by Cygna_hime



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe - Medieval, Fairy Tale Elements, Gen, Warning: Xehanort
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-09
Updated: 2016-01-18
Packaged: 2018-05-05 18:19:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5385722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cygna_hime/pseuds/Cygna_hime
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once upon a time, there were two brothers. That was the first mistake.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

Once upon a time, there was a kingdom that stretched from the forests to the sea. It was a large kingdom and a prosperous, for its fields were rich and its people industrious. It was a good kingdom for mining, and a better one for magic. Its neighbors were all beyond sea or forest or mountains north and south, and they were good but distant friends to the kingdom that was too strong to be easily conquered.

The king of this kingdom was young and strong, having won the hand of the princess (now queen) in three trials at her coming-of-age, but all was not as it should have been. For the king, before he had been king, had been the younger of two brothers, and his older brother liked it not at all that he, though the elder, would be ever the lesser of the two in power and glory. His brother the king knew nothing of this, however, and so elevated him to high rank within the court. The older brother was as cunning as the younger was strong, and he did his duties well, but more than that, he found others like himself unhappy with the king and queen, and he made them strong.

Five years after the ascension of the king, the elder brother judged that he was ready, and he called up all the forces he had made his own, and he made war upon his brother. To his banner flocked many lords and ladies with their knights, and the whole company of archers who never missed their mark, and dire alchemists whose workings had been cast down by the king’s decree, and ships of mercenaries and pirates from the sea, and one at least of the fairies whose power was beyond human magic. But to the king’s side came many of the court who loved him, and to his queen came those who still knew loyalty to her father that had been and to her who was, and when they called to the other lands for aid it came, and mages they had for themselves, and even fairies (three in number, it was said, though no one knew for sure). And where the armies clashed, the usurper coming from the south and the loyal from their castle in the north, the battle lasted for a week and a day, and after it was done there was a strip of land a mile wide and all the length of the kingdom where no living thing stood.

In the end the traitorous brother could not conquer, but neither could he be conquered, not without drowning all the land in blood, and this the king and queen would not do for any price. So they sent to him offering terms of peace, and these he accepted, for he was no fool and knew he could get no better.

They met to sign a pact of peace upon the land where the battle had been. A fairy who had taken no part was there as witness, and she was the one who wrote and presented the pact, that the land south of the blasted strip should belong to the older brother for life, and the land north of it remain to the younger, and neither of them should ever hold the whole, so long as either of them lived. And with this both brothers had to be content.

The queen, however, was not content, for it was her birthright and not her husband’s that had been taken from her by force of arms, and she immediately set about considering how she might keep the terms of the pact and yet regain what she had lost. It came to her at last that while the king and his brother lived the land was to be divided, after their deaths this would no longer hold. She was of the blood royal, which must think always a generation into the future, and she formed her plan after the fashion of her blood.

The pact had been signed for a year and a season when the queen was brought to her childbed. To the surprise of all, herself included, she bore twin princes, one fair like herself, one dark like her husband. The king’s joy was great, but the queen’s was greater still, for she saw in her heirs a chance to reunite her kingdom. Her husband’s brother had no child nor was likely to, so with his death in time all that he possessed would pass to her children, and her kingdom would be whole once more, whether or not she lived to see it.

That there were twins rather than one single child to inherit both halves of the kingdom without question was a concern to her, even at the beginning, but there was far worse to consider, for her pregnancy had been no secret, and if she planned without the knowledge of her husband, his brother had ever been sharper to see into the hearts of others, and he knew what she intended.

It was a week before the naming ceremony, in the princes’ first month of life, that he came by dark spells no one in the north of the kingdom knew he possessed into the very heart of the palace. There were no guards in the nursery, only maids and the wet-nurse, and they were nothing to him. When he stood over the cradles, no one breathed in the room but himself and the infants. Of them, the fair-headed one was crying loud enough to be heard from cellar to tower, but the dark just looked up with eyes full of the strange knowingness of babies.

When the guards reached the chamber, brought by the screams of the dying women, only one of the babies remained. He did not stop crying until his mother herself took him in her arms and sang him to sleep with the small power she possessed.

The declaration came from the south the very next day. The usurper sent it forth that he had taken his brother’s son to be his heir and the heir of all the kingdom, for he claimed that the dark-haired prince was the elder of the two. The queen and her women who had been with her claimed otherwise, but no proof could be had beyond word against word. Armies waited beyond the blasted border. It seemed that the war might begin again.

Then the usurper made pretence of seeking peace and let what he called fair terms be known throughout the divided kingdom. The people, hating the very thought of another war, rose up demanding that the king and queen accept them, and they, hating war no less, had no choice but to do so.

The terms were that in sixteen years, on the birthday of the princes, they should meet in combat to the death, and the winner should be the heir to both brothers and king of all the kingdom made one again. To this it was added by the king that either or both might choose a single champion to stand for them in the duel, for he loved the son who was gone as much as the son who was left. And so the decree stood, awaiting the sixteenth year and the disposition of the kingdom’s fate.


	2. Starchasers

Ven watched from his bedroom window the last of the sunlight slip across the horizon, the moon rise, and the stars begin. He knew where to look for them: first, like always, the Lodestone Star, rising above the mountains; second tonight the Boar’s Eye, red Tarahi; third, the brightest of Niobe’s Tears, with the smudge of her dimmer sisters not quite in view around her. When he saw the third, he greeted her with a broad smile and started pulling on his boots. Three stars made it really night, and tonight he had somewhere to be.

His valet (in theory) and bodyguard (in practice) was asleep in the adjoining room. Ven tiptoed as carefully as he could so as not to wake the man, but he suspected that Noah was watching him anyway, and the only reason he was getting as far as the door was that he had his father’s permission to be out tonight. Well, that and he wasn’t going alone. Noah didn’t trust many people with Ven’s safety, but he trusted Aqua.

She was waiting for him at the side gate they always used on these expeditions. Ven tried sneaking up on her, but just like always, she turned around right when he wasn’t expecting it and made _him_ jump. “What kept you?"

“I’m perfectly on time!” Ven declared. “You’re just early all the time to _everything_.”

Aqua laughed but didn’t deny it. “Come on, then. This was your idea, so you lead the way.”

There were fields all around the castle, wherever there wasn’t town or forest, but the best field, in Ven’s studied opinion, was almost two miles away, where the castle town and royal wood gave way to large estates with acres of fields. There was nothing to get in the way of the sky but the shadowy lump of the manor, and that didn’t cover a very important piece of sky anyway, if he picked the right spot.

“Here we go,” he said eventually, after lining things up so that the manor wouldn’t get in the way of anything interesting. There were still lights on in the windows, this early, and it rather improved that piece of sky, he thought.

“Did you even bring a blanket?” Aqua asked.

“Um…whoops?” There was no snow here yet, not like in the summer palace up against the mountains, but the winter fields were still cold, prickly, and uncomfortable.

Aqua let him squirm a little before she pulled a heavy stable blanket out from under her coat. “Good thing for you I’m here, huh?”

“What would I do without you?” he replied, not really joking. Aqua was his best friend, besides everything else. He hadn’t asked anyone else to come out here to watch the meteor shower with him, after all, even though anyone would have come. That was the thing about being the Crown Prince, though: anyone would have come, but not necessarily because they wanted to. Aqua did want to, _and_ she remembered to bring a blanket. Ven was going to have to think of something spectacular to give her for Fullnight.

“So where are these extra special stars of yours supposed to be?” asked Aqua, lying back on the blanket after it was arranged to her satisfaction.

“They’re not stars, exactly,” he said. “They’re meteors, like little…oh, you’ll see. The astrologer said they’d be up by Marakh tonight, a really big shower.”

“Which one’s Marakh again?”

“Over east, in the Bellerophon – look, where I’m pointing.” Ven shifted closer to Aqua so that she could follow his arm more accurately. She didn’t know the stars like he did, but then, her sorcery could pull together spells that he couldn’t even understand, much less cast.

Ven was starting to get cold even under his thick cloak and regretting just a little that he’d come all the way out here on a winter night, when the shower began. The first meteor shot across the eastern sky so fast he wasn’t sure for a moment if it had just been wishful thinking on his part, but right after it another followed, and then another.

“It’s like rain,” Aqua said. “Or snow.”

“That’s why it’s called a shower!” said Ven. Aqua swatted his arm with the back of her hand, but he barely noticed. He was too entranced. He loved stars, and Master Bugenhagen was the best teacher he could have ever asked for. He’d spent countless hours with Ven over the years, teaching him how to read the earth in the movements of the sky. Ven would never be a great astrologer: he’d never gotten the hang of seeing what the stars were telling him, other than that they were stars, but that was all he wanted to know from them anyway. Plenty of people were happy to make predictions on his behalf. At least the stars would leave him alone about it. Master Bugenhagen never tried to tell his fortune with them, either. It wasn’t like he had to; everyone knew all about the most important thing in Ven’s future, and no oracle or astrologer had yet been able to predict how it would turn out.

The stars were reassuring, that way: they were the only ones that weren’t worried.

Aqua was less entranced than he, luckily, because she saw the shadowy figure moving over the fields to the west long before Ven would have. Considering the dark, in fact, Ven likely would have been tripped over before noticing anything off. But even he noticed Aqua turning away from the stars and springing to her feet.

Whoever it was didn’t have any light, otherwise it might have been someone come to see what they were doing in the field. And the shadow, barely a grey blur against other shadows, was shaped wrong. Ven stood hastily and let Aqua put herself between him and the figure. He put his hand on his sword hilt but didn’t draw it yet. It might still be nothing, and he didn’t want to threaten someone who just happened to be out without a light – he was, after all.

Aqua had no such reservations. Her sword was in her hand, and in the other she summoned a sphere of bright flame. Ven blinked for a moment as he lost his night eyes. “Who’s there?” Aqua demanded. “Identify yourself!”

The figure winced at the sudden light, and it was only a person after all, a young man, carrying a child on his back. “I’m sorry, I – Your Highness! My apologies, I had no intention of disturbing you.” He went down on his knees, which Ven hated. Being bowed to was one thing, but people kneeling to him made his insides squirm.

“You didn’t; it’s fine,” he said, hoping that would make the man stand up again. It didn’t, so he sat. “But how did you recognize me?” He didn’t look _that_ strange, especially not in the dark, and Aqua wasn’t even wearing armor.

Aqua chuckled and flicked him in the temple with her finger. Her nail rang off the bronze circlet there, and Ven flushed. He sometimes forgot he was wearing the crown, it was so much a part of him. Then she turned back to the stranger and asked, all business again, “Who are you? And what were you doing out here at this hour?”

Even in the bad light, Ven could see him swallow, but his voice was steady when he replied, “I was trying to get to the castle to ask for asylum for my brother and me. My name is Terra Leonhart. Our mother was Countess Raine of Winhill.”

Ven just stared for a moment as the words sank in. He knew the name of Winhill, but he had never been there. He couldn’t have; Winhill was in the south. That meant this stranger was a southerner.

He didn’t look like one. He was dark enough, the way people farther south tended to be, but he didn’t look like a traitor or a pirate. He looked like he wasn’t much older than Ven, there were shadows on his face not cast by the firelight, and he was shivering a little. He looked like a refugee.

Ven had seen refugees before, when the kingdom to their northeast had been overrun by a dragon. People had poured over the border, and Ven had gone with many others to see that the supplies his father had set aside for them were being used well. He had seen what was almost a city spring up overnight, crowded with people who had escaped with the clothes on their backs and not much else. The refugees had gone home long since, but Ven had never forgotten them or the grim, stubborn lines of their faces.

Terra must have taken his silence for an answer. “Please,” he begged, “at least take my brother. He’s only a child! And he’s – his father was from the north, he belongs here. Please, Your Highness-!”

“I’m not going to send you away!” The words were flying out of Ven’s mouth before he’d even thought them. “I’m not going to send you away,” he repeated more calmly. “My family always protects people who need it.”

“If they come in good faith,” Aqua added. “You always forget that part, Ven.” She was still standing over both of them, like a fairy knight. “Lords don’t run away from their lands. It’s a hard tale to swallow in the dark.”

“What do you want from me?” asked Terra, not looking up from the ground.

Aqua considered for a long moment, but Ven knew what she was going to decide. She was tough, but she would never leave people to freeze or starve in the winter night. “Give me your sword and come with us to the palace, so the king can hear your tale and decide what to do with you both.”

Ven hadn’t even noticed the sword, tucked as it was down Terra’s back with his brother’s sleeping body covering it. Terra just nodded and slung the sleeper – he might be ten, Ven thought, or a little younger – carefully down onto the ground, then unbuckled the heavy sword in its sheath and held it up to Aqua. When she grasped it, his hands clenched for a moment, then fell away.

It took Aqua both hands to carry it well. “That’s a heavy thing to carry all this way,” she observed, still suspicious. Ven didn’t blame her, because that was her job, but all the same he wished she would stop. They could talk later, inside, where he wouldn’t notice how Terra shivered or how long it took him to get to his feet when Ven himself bounced right up.

“It was my father’s,” Terra said, picking his brother back up. The child hadn’t even stirred. Ven worried, but he was still breathing, and wrapped in a heavy cloak he looked warmer than Terra did.

Aqua examined the sword, assessing. Ven caught the sudden catch of her breath before she said, “A Blood sword?”

“…Yes.”

“Your father was…”

“He was a good man,” said Terra, more firmly than he’d said anything else all night. “He died fighting against the ki—the usurper. The rest doesn’t – does it matter?”

Ven wanted to say no, it didn’t matter, but that wasn’t his decision. Aqua was his Champion: without Noah there, it was up to her to keep him safe. If she thought a maybe Blood Knight – that kind of thing ran in families – was too much of a danger to him, out here in the middle of the night with no one but her to protect him, he would go along with her choice.

He hoped she wouldn’t, though. He bit his lip and watched her think it over.

“Swear to me,” she said eventually, “that you mean no harm. Not to us, not to the king, not to anyone in the castle. Swear on this sword.”

“I swear,” Terra said. He didn’t hesitate at all. If he was a liar, that didn’t mean anything, but Ven wanted to believe that Terra was only what he said he was. It would be nice if something good could come out of the south, for once.


	3. Oathtakers

It was not often that Eraqus heard petitioners so early in the morning, save in great need, but this was such a case, and more, until he had reached his decision no one quite knew what to do with the southerner, whether he was guest or prisoner here. He had been allowed to stay in a spare servant's chamber overnight, though guarded, out of consideration for his young brother, instead of in the cells, but that could not continue. He must either be imprisoned or set free.

 

About the younger of the two there was little doubt in the king's mind: a child was a child, and innocent, wherever he might come from. And they could scarcely send him back the way he had come.

 

“Besides,” said Queen Sara, “they have enough of our children already.” Married so long, and he marveled still at how brave she was. He could not bring himself to put into words the loss that tugged at him every day.

 

But the elder… It remained to be seen what he had to say for himself. Eraqus had seen the sword he claimed as a family heirloom: a Blood sword, beyond doubt. If the southerner was trained in its use, as he surely must be to choose it of all things to carry so far, then he was more dangerous than he looked, kneeling before the thrones with bowed head and lowered eyes.

 

“Your Majesties,” he began, “I come to you – we come to you – to beg asylum in your lands. My name is Terra Leonhart of Winhill. This is my brother, Squall.” The child was kneeling beside his brother in solemn imitation. “My – he is my half brother. His father is Laguna Loire, a knight of your lands. He has a birthright here.”

 

“You do not mention your own father,” Sara observed.

 

From the way the southerner flinched, it might have been an accusation she levied. “He was a knight of Winhill, Your Majesty. He fell in the war and was declared a traitor. By law, I have no father.”

 

“He was a Blood Knight,” said Eraqus. Had there truly been a Blood Knight fighting for the north? With the state of the records of that time, there was no way to know, certainly no way to know from here.

 

“Yes, Your Majesty,” said the southerner. He made no attempt to justify it further.

 

The queen was pursuing a different train of thought. “If your father was declared traitor, then this boy is no mere child, is he? He is the Count of Winhill.”

 

“I'm not!” the child cried out, before pressing both hands to his mouth. Clearly he had said more than he ought. Was this, then, merely a drama to set their minds at ease, and this child a carefully-coached actor?

 

“Speak on, child,” said Eraqus. When the southerner raised his head for the first time as if to object, Eraqus shook his head sternly.

 

The child, Squall, didn't look up at all, but he did say in a quiet voice, “I'm not the Count. I'm _not_. That's Sis. She's going to come back. She is!”

 

“Your sister?” asked Sara gently. She had a way with children that Eraqus could not match. “What is her name?”

 

“Ellone.” Squall shuffled on his knees closer to his brother (or was that “brother”?) and grasped a corner of his tunic as if for reassurance, of all things. “She disappeared when I was too small to remember, and my father went to find her and bring her back. And he _will_ , one day!” He finally looked up, scowling with slate-grey eyes. “I don't care what _anyone_ says. Your Majesty,” he added belatedly.

 

The southerner was trembling, barely perceptibly but still. After a brief silence, words burst from him as if a dam somewhere had broken. “Your Majesty, I beg you, forgive my brother! He doesn't mean to be impertinent, he's only a child! He doesn't understand! It's my fault; I should have taught him better manners! Please!”

 

He was afraid of them, Eraqus realized, terrified, and for what? A moment of a child's honesty? He almost hoped the boy  _was_ lying. The fear of the guilty was one thing, but such panic from the innocent…

 

“It's all right,” he said as gently as he could under the circumstances, at a loss for what else to say to mend the hurt he feared he saw. “I understand. You may speak freely, child.”

 

“I'm not a child, I'm _twelve_ ,” Squall said, before widening his eyes in shock at his own daring and scooting all the way behind his brother.

 

E raqus was somewhat taken aback. By size the boy looked no more than ten, and small at that. But when he looked closer, truly examined the child, it was true that there was a sensibility to his gaze that did not belong to a child of ten.  Nor yet to a child of twelve, in truth. Their journey had left marks on them both.

 

“And your brother?” he asked. “How old is he?” The southerner looked like a man grown, young but still no child. He must be some years Ven's senior at least.

 

Squall hid his head and said nothing until the southerner nudged him, but then he mumbled, “Seventeen, Your Majesty.”

 

So young? Surely that could not be right. Seventeen was Aqua's age, and she was in Eraqus's eyes a girl still, no matter that she did an adult's service. He could still see her a year, two years, ten years ago, a round-faced and knob-kneed little girl who seemed on occasion older than her age with solemnity. There was no such trace in the strong warrior kneeling before the thrones.

 

Sara coughed delicately. “This wanders rather from the point: what brings someone of such high rank to the position of seeking asylum so far from home?”

 

“I –” began Squall, then he seemed to get lost and turned to the elder for help.

 

“They were going to kill him, Your Majesty,” said the southerner, and his voice cracked – he did sound seventeen then, or else a broken man of forty. “I overheard – they were going to have him killed, to take the estate.”

 

What?! Eraqus kept himself from an unbecoming outburst only through main force of will. Were they truly so far fallen in the south as to do such a thing, countenance the murder of a child for nothing but the title and lands he bore? Must he believe his brother capable, even now, of such a thing? … Must he not?

 

S ara simply nodded. She had never trusted Xehanort, and so never been betrayed. “That would be reason enough, if it were true,” she said. “But have you any proof, of any of your claims?”

 

“… No.” The admission drew the southerner's shoulders into a defensive hunch, but he offered no more. Perhaps he had no more to offer. And what more had Eraqus a right to expect of him, if he did speak the truth? If the two of them were no more than brothers who had made a dangerous and difficult journey alone to a place that must frighten them only slightly less than what they had left behind? Was it fair of him to ask more? And yet, was it not his duty to ask, for Ven's sake, for some proof that they were not spies or assassins come with a tale designed to tear at the heart-strings and serve as a mask for evil deeds?

 

After all, if they were merely what they claimed to be, if the southerner was nothing more than a boy with an inherited blade, why come to the very palace? There were half a dozen towns they must have passed where two young things could have found shelter and fewer questions.

 

“Why come here?” he asked. “Why did you not cease your journey when you first reached our lands?”

 

The southerner finally looked up, and there was his youth at last: seventeen showed itself in the last hints of childish softness to a face meant to be solid, in the width of startled blue eyes. He dropped his gaze immediately – was it fear or merely formality that made him behave so? - but Eraqus had seen what he had seen.

 

“It is not lawful,” he said simply.

 

And, as it happened, wrongly. “There is no law forbidding settlement here from another country – nay, not even from the south.” Whether any here would trust a southerner was another matter, of course, but in truth they were hearing a petition that should have been unnecessary. That he was unsure now whether to grant it, even so, spoke to the depth of the pall that hung over their country, the pall called now the south.

 

“But I was told – I beg your pardon, Your Majesty.” Another surprised look up, another wrenching of the gaze downward as soon as the boy became aware of it. “I believed – if we were discovered, it would look – Your Majesties would not be pleased.”

 

Eraqus was not particularly elated at the moment, either. Nor, he could see, was his wife. But in truth, what did he have to hold against these two, save that they were from the south? There was no law against being a Blood Knight, still less carrying a Blood sword. Nor was there any against being weary and without recourse, against being petrified with fear and yet  brave enough to come before them anyway.

 

“And what will you do, if we grant your petition?” asked Sara in her clear, sweet voice.

 

From the silence, it was clear that the boy had no answer ready. At length, he said blankly, “Find work?” The words sounded as though he found them strange.

 

Sara pressed. “What work? What skills have you, by which to support yourself?”

 

“I -” The boy swallowed. “I have my strength, I am good with a blade – I will find something, Your Majesty. We would not be a burden upon your land.”

 

There were few kinds of work for which  strength of arm alone might serve as qualification, and many of those  which occurred to him Eraqus liked not at all. A boy with no family or friends to stand for him would find it difficult to get any work at all, still less if his southern features were recognized.

 

Eraqus realized he was feeling responsible for this pair, these children who had come so far to throw themselves upon a mercy they seemed doubtful of receiving. They had come to him for help, to him in person, and so he felt that it was the least he could do to provide  it  unless he wished to turn them away entirely, and that he felt increasingly sure he could not do.  Turn a child of twelve out into the street? Or take that child from the brother he was even now clinging to? No, surely that could not be the right thing to do.

 

“If you speak the truth,” he said heavily, “I will take you into my service and under my protection.” Sara looked to him sharply, but when she understood his mind, she nodded and subsided into agreement. “Bring forth the Sword of Truth.”

 

It had been hard-won, that sword of fairy make, and used too little until too late, Eraqus often thought, for it held within it the virtue that whoever laid hand on it could speak only the truth. Even now he was reluctant to use it too often, for it was a law of magic that the more such things were used, the swifter they lost their virtue, but he had been betrayed once too often to let it lie in the treasury always.

 

Now he instructed the southern boy Terra to lay his hand upon the flat of the blade  and so swear:

 

“I, Terra of Winhill, swear my loyalty to this kingdom and its people. I will serve their weal in word and deed, without fear or favor, until my lord release me or death take me, or the world end.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes on Fictitious Inheritance Law: Ellone, Terra, and Squall all have the same mother, but Squall has a different father. Ellone and Terra's father was sentenced as a traitor, as part of which his children were barred from inheriting noble title even through another line. Squall is therefore legally the Count of Winhill; if you think the Nameless Dead Dad was a patriot and not a traitor, though, you'd believe that Ellone should hold that title. Aside from having disappeared, which is a whole other thing.
> 
> Yes, I know that in FF8 canon Ellone is adopted, but do you really want me making this *more* complicated by adding adoption law? I warn you, I'll do it.


End file.
